Innovation Must be Focused on the Holistic Customer Experience

by Deborah Conte Santoro, Managing Director ReelLink

Innovation Must be Focused on the Holistic Customer Experience

Deborah Conte Santoro, Managing Director ReelLink, says that innovation is often mistaken for technology itself, but tech is more of an enabler for next-gen player experiences  

Innovation. This is a popular word among operators and suppliers, with everyone claiming to be innovative and game-changing. The reality is that very few companies are moving the needle in a meaningful way – in most cases, what is seen to be revolutionary is actually just evolutionary. 

I also think we often mistake innovation for technology itself, whereas real progress is made by evaluating the entire game experience, which is at the core of the wider customer journey. 

Sure, modern platforms and solutions embrace and refine trends like deep localisation and hyper-personalisation, dynamic bonuses and seamless omni-channel play, but it’s the memorable experiences provided by games that drive true value. 

This means technology is more of an enabler, but this sits at odds in the world of traditional casinos, where upgrades focus mostly on hardware rather than on in-game experiences and holistic player journeys. 

Innovation is both technical and operational

This means innovation needs to cover technology, but it can be operational, too. This is because absolutely everything ultimately revolves around the player experience. 

For example, the workflows around the wider player experience facilitate rapid content onboarding, automated compliance checks and seamless omnichannel delivery. And there are plenty of ways to innovate within these areas of operations. 

That said, technical solutions are indispensable for achieving this efficiency and speed, ultimately powering innovations in gameplay and player experience. Let me explain by way of example. 

Data analytics pinpoints the most promising titles in real time, while journey orchestration platforms synchronise player preferences across channels. Here, technology serves as the enabler of operational excellence. 

At the end of the day, it’s about delivering a consistent, personalised and frictionless gaming experience that truly delights the player, and this requires both operational and technical innovation and excellence.

Innovating within strict regulatory guidelines 

For most operators and suppliers, innovation must be delivered within strict regulations, always with a focus on player protection. 

Swiss Casinos operates in Switzerland, one of the most tightly regulated markets in the world, so we have first-hand experience of innovating within regulatory frameworks. Some see this as regulations holding back progress, but we use it to our advantage. 

How do we do that? To balance innovation with compliance, we’ve augmented our compliance teams with automated, trigger-based workflows that flag and address issues in real time. 

Every new product and feature is developed with legal and QA experts embedded alongside our dev and ops teams from day one, ensuring all innovations are vetted against Swiss regulatory requirements. 

We also conduct ongoing training for all staff, educating them on innovation boundaries and proper usage of new tools. This “compliance-by-design” approach lets us move quickly while achieving the highest responsible gaming standards.

Innovating for both player and operator requirements 

If we continue to follow the idea that innovation goes beyond technology and should focus on the wider player experience, it’s important to see operator and player innovation as one. Innovation cannot be an either-or between operators and players, as they are inherently interdependent. 

Every technical advance for operators must directly enable richer, more responsive experiences for players, and player insights must feed back into operator tooling, creating a virtuous cycle where back-end and front-end innovation evolve together. 

Only by balancing both can the industry achieve sustainable growth and truly differentiated offerings. 

We believe that online casinos, with their real-time, on-site environments, naturally offer a wide range of tools and data-analysis capabilities. By contrast, in our four land-based casinos, it’s been challenging to introduce innovation on the floor. 

The selection of slot machines is limited, and game variety refreshes very slowly compared to online. To me, land-based still operates like a dinosaur behind its digital counterpart. 

This is an area where we would definitely welcome more operator-focused technologies to bridge the gap and bring the floor up to the speed of online, but instead of waiting for a supplier to make this happen, we have taken matters into our own hands. 

Bridging the gap between land-based and online

ReelLink by Swiss Casinos bridges the gap between the land-based and online worlds for the very first time. In short, it allows us to deliver any online slot game from any provider to any slot machine cabinet located on the gaming floors of our four casino properties across Switzerland. 

We can do this instantly, seamlessly and compliantly. This, in turn, transforms traditional slot machines into high-performance content engines where, via a single click, we can offer a premium, varied gaming experience that drives both engagement and profitability.

It also stands as the perfect example of technology being an enabler for a superior player experience, and being both technical and operational innovation. 

Innovation will remain a hot topic for many years to come, but only a few operators and suppliers will truly revolutionise the space and set a new standard for player experiences that others will ultimately have to follow. 

At Swiss Casinos, we fully intend to lead that revolution with ReelLink and the other innovations we have in the works.